FRANKFORT, Ky. — A Kentucky lawmaker wants to make it a crime to interfere with a religious service following a controversial church protest in Minnesota and subsequent high-profile arrests last month.

State Rep. Mitch Whitaker, R-Fleming-Neon, is the primary sponsor of House Bill 540, filed Feb. 3, which would make it a Class A misdemeanor when a person disrupts or prevents participation in a religious service.

A person is guilty of disrupting a service when they do any act intending to “obstruct, or physically or audibly interfere” with access to the service, attempt to damage or destroy any of property of the religious organization or “injure, intimidate, or interfere” with someone attending the service, according to the bill’s language.

Additionally, a person found guilty would be liable in any “civil cause of action” by the religious organization or “a victim who was lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise a right of religious worship.”

The legislation comes amid protests in Minneapolis and beyond against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and surge of federal officers in the state. Over the last several weeks, thousands of people have protested after 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti and Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, were fatally shot by federal agents in two separate occurrences.

One of those protests occurred at Cities Church in St. Paul on Jan. 18, where protesters said one of the pastors was in immigration enforcement official.

Whitaker said in a press release that he was troubled by the protests at the church and believes current Kentucky law “falls short” in protecting religious services. Although the law provides “modest penalties for religious disruptions, they do not go far enough, given the gravity of the offense,” he said.

“I’ve filed this bill with the hope that it would prevent something similar happening in our commonwealth, and to ensure prosecution if it were to occur,” Whitaker said.

Angela Cooper, Communications Director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a statement Kentucky already has laws in place to protect religious services.

“Destruction of property and other items mentioned in the bill are already considered criminal,” Cooper said. “Drafting new legislation based on a single event that took place in another state is a poor use of time when Kentucky has so many existing laws in need of modernization and repair.”

Since the protest, two journalists have been arrested for covering the protest at the church and face federal charges, a development that has alarmed free speech advocates and press freedom groups.

“This is an egregious assault on the First Amendment and on journalists’ ability to do their work,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists in a statement. “As an international organization, we know that the treatment of journalists is a leading indicator of the condition of a country’s democracy.

“These arrests are just the latest in a string of escalating threats to the press in the United States — and an attack on people’s right to know.”

Former CNN host Don Lemon and eight other co-defendants, including another journalist, were arrested and charged with “conspiracy against religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating, and interfering with the exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship,” according to BBC News.

Lemon, who is now an independent journalist, has since been released from custody and was not asked to enter a plea. The other journalist arrested was independent Minnesota journalist Georgia Fort, who has also been released from custody.

Both have promised to fight their charges and continue reporting.

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